Gone Awandering

16/05/2024

Ok, ok we have about 4 months worth of epic travels, sites and travel tips to catch up on 🫣 but for now I’ll leave you with photos from our most recent hike.

📍Fern Canyon, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

A one mile trail with canyon walls covered with beautiful, dripping moss and ferns. So, so beautiful! Very doable with kids. Wear hiking sandals or water shoes as a majority of the hike is either in the creek or crossing it frequently.

Day use permits are required to enter 9am - 5pm, May 15th - September 15th. Permits are available about 2 weeks out or they do release a small number of next day permits each morning at 9am.

We ended up entering after 5pm even though we did have a permit and there was plenty of time to do it in the evening. Stick around to watch the Sunset on Gold Bluffs Beach.

A day use fee of $12 is required, American the Beautiful or CA State Parks passes also accepted.

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02/02/2024

Working on this, one day at a time!

16/01/2024

We have reached 400 followers! Thank you for following our journey here on Facebook. You can follow us on all platforms 😁

09/10/2023

Fall in the North Cascades

29/08/2023

13 months ago Jenn Richardson reached out to me. We were in a mutual RV family group on Facebook and realized our families were so very similar. We were both in the heat of moving out of our homes, dealing with all of the stuff, moving into a 43’ 5th wheel with two young boys about to jump off on an adventure of a lifetime. Full time RV living and travel!

The problem was, we were starting about as far away from each other as you can get in the US. Florida and Washington!

We’ve stayed connected over this year, sharing stories and swapping travel tips. Our paths crossed nearby in Texas, but we were never quite close enough to meet up.

Until now! They had planned to be in our hometown to visit friends on their way up to Canada and turns out we actually go to church with their friends! We got a chance to have dinner together, share stories, our boys played together. It was truly the best! And even better, we are talking through plans to meet up again this winter!

RV life truly brings the most amazing people into our lives that we would never have met otherwise. Meeting the Richardson family was such a gift and we can’t wait to see ya’ll down the road!

27/07/2023

Our dear friend made us this beautiful memory of our first year of traveling in our RV! Thank you, thank you, thank you! It’s perfect!!

23/07/2023

Sold the RadWagon cargo e-bike and moved to a bit smaller RadRunner Plus that still has kid carrying capacity! It’s quite a bit shorter than the RadWagon so will be easier to transport once we hit the road again! 🚴

17/06/2023

We are back in our home state, WA, for the Summer and having fun exploring things around us! Today we hiked up to Oyster Dome in the Chuckanut Mountains. From the top we had amazing views of the San Juan Islands, Samish Bay and the Skagit River flats. The boys made it on a 5 mile round trip hike with close to 1500ft of elevation gain and they did awesome! We also saw hang-gliders taking off from where we started our hike at Samish Overlook. Perfect weather for a hike!

09/05/2023

Such sad news at Hurricane ridge. I haven’t been there in years but was hoping to take my kiddos up there this summer.

We are sorry to share that the Hurricane Ridge Day Lodge was destroyed in a fire today Sunday, May 7th. Details are still emerging, but early reports indicate the building is a total loss. No one was in the building at the time as the area was closed. We will update as we are able. https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/news/hurricane-ridge-day-lodge-fire-2023-05-07.htm

Photo: Two photos. Top photo of Hurricane Ridge Day Lodge on summer day. Bottom photo remains of Day Lodge after fire

08/05/2023

Another epic sunset. This is on the Oregon side of the Columbia River looking North to Washington.

06/05/2023

After SIX months of full time RV life on the road we are back in the PNW!! As amazing as our travels have been, the hills and the trees and even the RAIN will always feel like home! We’re coming for you WA!

05/05/2023

We're at 76 followers and would love to get to 100 before we leave for Alaska on May 20th!

05/05/2023

The Fay Canyon Trail in Sedona was an absolutely perfect hike with kids. A mostly flat and wide out and back trail with an optional scramble up a rock face at the end with beautiful views. We took the side off shoot which was a steep scramble up to a natural stone arch, it was a challenging climb but the kids did amazing and absolutely loved the challenge! Highly recommend this hike for anyone!

05/05/2023

We went to the Airport Mesa scenic overlook in Sedona and hiked part of the Airport Loop Trail. Such a great overview of the surrounding area. The blue sky and fluffy white clouds were just the icing on the cake!

05/05/2023

We went hiking in Red Rock State Park, our first real glimpse of the red rocks of Sedona. Such a beautiful hike, a great easy hike with kids!

The state park also has a Jr. Ranger program so we enjoyed lunch while working on the Jr. Ranger booklets surrounded by gorgeous views!

05/05/2023

It’s going to take a few posts to catch up on all of our amazing adventures in the Sedona AZ area. We stayed at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails in Cottonwood, AZ which was about a 30 min drive from the city of Sedona. We got to spend the week with our friends and had so many amazing adventures!

Our first adventure was a trip to Montezuma’s Castle. A Native American twenty room, five story apartment type complex, built by the Sinagua people, into the side of a cliff. It was built over three centuries, between approximately 1100-1400AD.

It is speculated they built so high into the cliff to avoid the yearly flooding of Beaver Creek which was very near by. It’s amazing it has been preserved so well!

02/05/2023

Eric was stationed at the Coast Guard Air Station in Sacramento 25 years ago. We got to go have a tour and check out the planes. We learned about search and rescue efforts they participate in, even flying as far North as the Puget Sound for some missions. They can use external infrared cameras to search for lost boats, aircraft or people. They can fly to 200ft and drop rescue supplies out of the back of the plane until on scene rescue can arrive. Such a cool experience!

25/04/2023

Day two we drove up and parked at the South Rim Visitor Center. We felt like we could take our time taking the shuttle into the village and hitting the view points we had missed the previous day.

We hiked down a small portion of the Bright Angel Trail to a tunnel in the rock. It was fun to have a different perspective being down in the canyon, even if it wasn’t very far.

Spencer summed it up perfectly as he gazed out over the canyon at the end of day two. “This view just never gets old, no matter how many times you see it!”

25/04/2023

Our first day at the Grand Canyon we took the Grand Canyon Train to the South Rim. We had about 3.5 hours to spend there and walked to see some of the sights near the village and used the free shuttle to go to some other viewpoints along the rim.

The train was a fun experience. There was a Wild West show in Williams, AZ before we got on the train. The sheriff and walking performers came through the cars and on the way home some train robbers came to steal all our money 🤣.

We decided we wanted more time to explore the South Rim so stay tuned for day 2!

Follow us Gone Awandering for more of our full time RV travel adventures!

17/04/2023

We found a friend, in the wild, at our campground in Arizona. 😬😬🤣🤣.

10/04/2023

We’re back in Arizona! We’re in the Northern part of the state this time and our drive is surrounded by gorgeous painted cliffs!

10/04/2023

We stayed at a super cute RV park just west of Albuquerque last night! Enchanted Trails Rv and camp ground. The boys loved the hubcap tree and I loved looking into all of the vintage RVs and cars.

The RVs all had signs with their name and year and the insides we could see in the windows were all original vintage. So cute, I want one!

09/04/2023

Happy Easter from the Olson Family! He is Risen Indeed!

09/04/2023

A recent short stay in Kerrville, TX on our way West was HOT! We made the most of it in the pool and also checked out their river front parks where the boys got their clothes soaked in the spray fountains. I was unprepared for that one! 🤣 Note to self…always have change of clothes for the kids in the truck.

09/04/2023

We visited the DoSeum Children’s museum in San Antonio for a very special 5 year old’s birthday adventure! It was probably the best Children’s museum we’ve been to yet! We were there for 5 hours and still didn’t get to everything. I was exhausted, The kids had a blast! 🤣

We also found out a couple of days before that our friends were also nearby so we got to meet up with them there as well! It’s always so magical to meet up with RV families at different points along our journey!

09/04/2023

In March, I (Jodell) had to fly home to WA to work some required shifts. (I’m a Per Diem RN at our local hospital). A and I left Eric and S near Dallas and flew into Seattle.

We were there for almost three weeks. I worked full-time while we were there and we tried to fit in as many visits with friends and family as we could. It was a busy whirlwind but fun to be back in our hometown for a bit and hug some loved ones in person!

09/04/2023

Walking With Dinosaurs! 🦕 🦖

Backtracking a bit here on some posts to catch up on our activities over the last month.

At the beginning of March we found ourselves camping with some great friends and at Lake Whitney Thousand Trails, South of Dallas. We adventured together to Dinosaur Valley State Park, Southeast of Dallas.

We literally walked where dinosaurs walked! We put our feet in actual dinosaur footprints! I was in awe and had no idea how amazing it would be before we got there!

We also checked out nearby Dinosaur World with over 150 life sized dinosaur models. It truly was an epic adventure made all the more better by sharing it with friends!

08/04/2023

After 2.5 months in Texas we are slowly working our way West again!